What is Chestnut Package Manager?
Chestnut Package Manager is a simple command line utility to improve the handling of programs and files. Suppose you are a very tidy person, and you would like to keep different programs in different directories. If you are a UNIX fellow, you will probably know that you will have to specify each directory in the PATH variable to make them reachable by simple invocation. An alternative is to specify every time the absolute path of the executable, but this is boring. Chestnut allows you to reach the program quickly, and most important, if you move the program somewhere else, you can easily make it work without too much hassle. You can consider it like a PATH on steroids. MacOSX users can find a quite similar tool in the “open” shell command.
In which situation is it useful?
By personal experience, in scientific environment you often end up having a lot of small programs, each one performing a very simple computational task. You then combine these programs together using a shell script to perform your science. This scenario produces the problems that Chestnut Package Manager solves. Chestnut Package Manager allows you to keep the entropy low, to document your computational tools to a minimum, and to make them searchable and well organized.
I want to contribute, How can I be useful?
You are welcome! I have a lot of plans for future development of Chestnut, but I am currently alone. In order to collaborate, you don’t need to code. I consider documentation of primary importance, and I am not very good at writing manuals and tutorials. If you want to code, and you know Python, there’s plenty of tests and code to write as well. Just drop me a line by email (moc.liamg ta tuntsehc+inirob.onafets) and we’ll talk about it.
Why the chestnut symbol?
Initially, the software was simply called PackageManager. I found it too generic, and I wanted a more characteristic name. I played a little on the Chest concept, with ChestGold as a first guess. I ended up choosing Chestnut after some Wikipedia browsing.
Can I roast it?
Of course! Just remember that burned hard disk fumes are probably not good for your health.
Where did you find the Chestnut image?
FDL image from Wikipedia. Author is Wilfried Wittkowsky. I did minor cosmetic adjustments to the shadow.
